Background: Although many population-based studies have reported an association between physical activity and cardiovascular disease (CVD) among healthy populations, the association among CVD survivors has been less reported. We examined the relationship between physical activity and CVD risk among survivors.
Methods and results: This was a prospective cohort study of 12,490 Japanese participants, including 754 individual CVD survivors. Between April 1992 and July 1995, a baseline survey was conducted in 12 communities in Japan. The mean follow-up period was 11.9 years, during which time 74 individuals had non-fatal CVD and 51 cases were fatal CVD. Among CVD survivors, analysis was performed after exclusion of participants with a history of cancer and those who died within the first 2 years of follow-up. Physical activity was analyzed in tertiles (low, moderate and heavy), and the hazard ratios (HRs) were calculated for non-fatal or fatal CVD among CVD survivors. After setting the low group as the reference, the HRs for non-fatal CVD in the moderate and heavy groups were 0.61 (95% confidence interval: 0.30-1.24) and 0.50 (0.20-1.25) (P for trend = 0.059), respectively, and the HRs for fatal CVD were 0.75 (0.33-1.69) and 0.18 (0.04-0.83) (P for trend = 0.026), respectively.
Conclusions: Physical activity reduced the risk of CVD, both fatal and non-fatal events, among CVD survivors.